As part of our ongoing collaboration with Nieman Journalism Lab, we’ve rounded up the latest in digital- and media-oriented scholarship — picking highlights from disciplines such as computer science, political science, journalism research and communications.

At the 2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, concern focused on the global climate impacts of land-use changes such as deforestation. While the conference sought to establish regulations on emissions resulting from land-use changes only for rapidly growing countries, growth and urbanization in more developed nations also plays a role.

While the full impact of climate change has yet to be felt, agencies such as NASA, the EPA, and NOAA have chronicled its initial effects over the last 30 years. In addition to rising sea levels and shrinking glaciers, evidence includes modifications in species habitats. Coral suffer as temperatures rise, while other less welcome species can flourish.

In studying the mechanisms that determine how candidates prevail in presidential primaries, political scientists have often focused on momentum and how a candidate can pull away from the field. But they have also studied the “winnowing” process, analyzing the factors that cause candidates to drop out and, by attrition, ultimately leave one candidate as the nominee.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 17.6 million students attended U.S. postsecondary institutions in 2009. Of these, more than a third chose to study part-time or discontinuously. While such nontraditional attendance can make education possible that otherwise wouldn’t be, research has suggested that it is also associated with lower graduation rates, higher education expenses and a reduction in total wages over the course of one’s working life.

Journalist’s Resource aims to bridge the gap between the media and scholarly worlds. We come at the problem from the media end of things. But our friends at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s “Impact of Social Sciences” blog are encouraging more scholars themselves to engage directly in the wider communications space.

Research has shown that fair-trade transactions — in which relatively wealthy global consumers purchase goods produced by less affluent producers — appeal to consumers’ ethical and altruistic impulses and can provide much-needed resources to producers. Inquiry has been limited, though, on the extent to which overall living standards among producers are truly improved. Marketing claims about the purported benefits of fair trade and its contribution to “ethical globalization” rest on related premises.

Renée Loth, a columnist for the Boston Globe, is the newspaper’s former editorial page editor. In that capacity, Loth was the highest-ranking woman at the Globe for nine years. Having covered presidential campaigns and served in various oversight capacities as editor, she’s spent a career both sorting through spin and practicing the art of informed opinion.